Collection management policies

Quick guide to Library Approval Plans

In addition to the many books that are selected individually by subject librarians, the University Libraries maintains a set of approval plans with Yankee Book Peddlers (YPB) and select other vendors. These agreements provide for the automatic receipt of new materials matching the Libraries' predetermined specifications, which consist of publisher lists, subject profiles, and other terms governing such parameters as academic level, edition, language and price. Our publisher lists include all US and British university presses, along with numerous trade publishers and scholarly and scientific societies.

Among them, the approval plans account for a significant fraction of book acquisitions by the University Libraries. Books received on approval generally arrive faster, with a larger discount, and with a lower expenditure of staff resources than books that are ordered individually. Patrons desiring a newly-released book likely to come on approval should not hesitate to request the title, because it is only by this means that we can make sure that they will be notified of its arrival.

We maintain the following approval plans with YBP:

• A faculty authors plan for monographs authored or edited by members of the Virginia Tech faculty
• A plan governing monographs in the humanities and social sciences
• A plan governing monographs in the sciences and technology
• A plan for upper-level textbooks in all disciplines

We also maintain two more specialized plans with other vendors:

• A plan for books in art from Worldwide Books
• A plan for musical scores from Theodore Front Musical Literature

We will be glad to share further details of these plans or to entertain suggestions for their modification. The library's can access the details of the YBP plans through their password-protected accounts on GOBI, Yankee's online system. Patrons interested in knowing more about our current plans should contact Edward Lener, Associate Director of Collection Management, 540-231-9249.

Last updated – 10/08/2009